In Canada, the right to freedom of expression is not absolute

[hjmick]

One of the rights afforded us in the Constitution is the freedom of speech. All speech. It's one of the rights I hold most dear, and I hope that those of youreading this also hold it close. It should be protected. Whether you like what someone is saying or not, whether you agree or not, no matter how despicable the words you hear, the freedom of speech in the U.S. is perhaps the most important right we have.

Censorship of the type discussed in the proceeding article should never be allowed or tolerated in this country. The stifling of ideas and opinions, hateful and otherwise, will not affect change. It is only through open discussion in the harsh light of the public forum that change will come.

I came across this article on the subject as it applies to Canadian laws. Much like the banning of handguns in England (http://www.debatepolicy.com/showthread.php?t=15160), let this serve as a cautionary tale. That is, if you value your freedom of speech...



Hate speech or free speech? What much of West bans is protected in U.S.
By Adam Liptak
Published: June 11, 2008

VANCOUVER, British Columbia: A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article's tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States did not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.

Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.

Under Canadian law, there is a serious argument that the article contained hate speech and that its publisher, Maclean's magazine, the nation's leading newsweekly, should be forbidden from saying similar things, forced to publish a rebuttal and made to compensate Muslims for injuring their "dignity, feelings and self respect."

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, which held five days of hearings on those questions in Vancouver last week, will soon rule on whether Maclean's violated a provincial hate speech law by stirring up animosity toward Muslims...

In the United States, that debate has been settled. Under the First Amendment, newspapers and magazines can say what they like about minority groups and religions - even false, provocative or hateful things - without legal consequence.

The Maclean's article, "The Future Belongs to Islam," was an excerpt from a book by Mark Steyn called "America Alone." The title was fitting: The United States, in its treatment of hate speech, as in so many areas of the law, takes a distinctive legal path.

"In much of the developed world, one uses racial epithets at one's legal peril, one displays Nazi regalia and the other trappings of ethnic hatred at significant legal risk and one urges discrimination against religious minorities under threat of fine or imprisonment," Frederick Schauer, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, wrote in a recent essay called "The Exceptional First Amendment."

"But in the United States," Schauer continued, "all such speech remains constitutionally protected..."


Complete article... (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/11/america/hate.php?page=1)




The last sentence in the article stirred me:


"Western governments are becoming increasingly comfortable with the regulation of opinion. The First Amendment really does distinguish the U.S., not just from Canada but from the rest of the Western world."


I may not like what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.


“The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.” - Tommy Smothers

[diuretic]

In the US can you sue for defamation?

[hjmick]

In the US can you sue for defamation?

Yes you can, though you don't see it very often. Not being a legal scholar by any stretch of the imagination, I can only guess as to the reason why, I can't help but think that the burden of proof in such cases makes winning a lawsuit a hit or miss proposition at best.

Counselor, what say you?

[hjmick]

Damn...Yurt signed off...

[Kathianne]

Seriously, what's happening in Canada to Steyn, McClean's, the Pastor speaking out against homosexuals, and others is beyond Kafkaesque. These are non-lawyers, much less judges, that hear opinion or facts, doesn't matter. The 'standards' are whatever suits them. They have a 100% conviction rate, well whatever that means.

Lots more here (http://ezralevant.com/). And here. (http://ezralevant.com/2008/06/what-could-mark-steyns-punishm.html)

[hjmick]

Seriously, what's happening in Canada to Steyn, McClean's, the Pastor speaking out against homosexuals, and others is beyond Kafkaesque. These are non-lawyers, much less judges, that hear opinion or facts, doesn't matter. The 'standards' are whatever suits them. They have a 100% conviction rate, well whatever that means.

Lots more here (http://ezralevant.com/). And here. (http://ezralevant.com/2008/06/what-could-mark-steyns-punishm.html)

Scary stuff, K, scary stuff.

[manu1959]

Yes you can, though you don't see it very often. Not being a legal scholar by any stretch of the imagination, I can only guess as to the reason why, I can't help but think that the burden of proof in such cases makes winning a lawsuit a hit or miss proposition at best.

Counselor, what say you?

it is very difficult to win and or prove.....but you can certainly file suit...

i believe the standard is malicious intent and false accusations beyond a resonable doubt that result in economic damages.....

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=defamation+lawsuits&spell=1

[Kathianne]

Scary stuff, K, scary stuff.

Certainly is. So is France giving an annulment based upon the fact that the wife wasn't a virgin and said she was. Add that to the hymen surgery becoming popular throughout Europe, covered by national health care no doubt, truly troubling.

Then there's Germany where the police closed down a theater production, fearing it was an insult against Islam. It goes on and on.

To me the largest problem from this appeasement is the fact that Europe is likely to explode at some point, as they have so often in the past. What the Islamacists are considering Dhimmi behavior, the Europeans have been crediting their tolerance. There's more than anecdotal evidence that the tide may be turning, but probably not quickly enough.

[diuretic]

I suspect in Europe (including the UK) that it's political. Now don't chuck empty beer bottles at me and call me Captain Obvious...(make them full and give me a chance to catch a few)...but I'd say that in certain areas a critical mass of voters who come from "minorities" can put someone into a legislature. That someone is then owned. They, if they're a government member, can start pressuring inside the party room for their constituents (to whom they are held hostage) to get what they want. That's okay up to a point. That point, I think, is when everyone else starts to have to change their ways or are really put out. That's when tolerance wears thin.

It's not a problem here in Australia. We have 150 seats in the lower house of our federal parliament. If every Muslim man, woman and child were to move to a single electorate to own the member there, they would amount to just four seats.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm not fussed by anyone's religious beliefs or practices just as long as I am not affected by them and they don't breach our secular laws.

But back to the issues in Canada. These are provincial issues. The laws in each province are different so it's a bit misleading (I know it's not intentional) to say this is "Canadian". Canada and Canadians are as diverse as America and Americans.

[hjmick]

I'm not concerned with the religious aspect of the laws so much as I am concerned with the laws themselves. Much like you I am indifferent to religion, I consider myself to be Agnostic, but one good push could send me into the Atheist camp, either way, I will never condemn or make fun of people who believe.

For me, it is about free speech. At least free speech as we in the U.S. have come to understand it.

Now, granted this is happening in Canada, for now, and has no effect on me or mine, for now. But, as I stated in another thread, when one considers that there is at least one Justice on the U.S. Supreme court who feels it is acceptable to look to the laws and rulings of foreign courts when interpreting U.S. laws, it gives me pause, especially in the politically correct times we find ourselves in today. I don't know if the political correctness wave has hit you Aussies yet, but here it is damn near sickening.

When I look around and consider the hyper-sensitivity of some groups in America, I do not think it so far fetched to think that laws like the ones being discussed here could indeed appear in the U.S.

[Kathianne]

I'm not concerned with the religious aspect of the laws so much as I am concerned with the laws themselves. Much like you I am indifferent to religion, I consider myself to be Agnostic, but one good push could send me into the Atheist camp, either way, I will never condemn or make fun of people who believe.

For me, it is about free speech. At least free speech as we in the U.S. have come to understand it.

Now, granted this is happening in Canada, for now, and has no effect on me or mine, for now. But, as I stated in another thread, when one considers that there is at least one Justice on the U.S. Supreme court who feels it is acceptable to look to the laws and rulings of foreign courts when interpreting U.S. laws, it gives me pause, especially in the politically correct times we find ourselves in today. I don't know if the political correctness wave has hit you Aussies yet, but here it is damn near sickening.

When I look around and consider the hyper-sensitivity of some groups in America, I do not think it so far fetched to think that laws like the ones being discussed here could indeed appear in the U.S.

More today on the web:

http://reason.com/blog/show/127000.html

It's long, so I'm including a bit:


Violating Human Rights to Defend Them

Jacob Sullum | June 12, 2008, 1:23pm

At a time when the U.S. government is often (and often justly) criticized for compromising civil liberties in pursuit of terrorists, New York Times legal writer Adam Liptak reminds us of one respect in which Americans are indisputably freer than other Westerners: They can speak their minds without fear of being prosecuted for offending people. In countries such as Canada, France, England, Germany, and the Netherlands, by contrast, freedom of speech can be overriden in the name of equality and multiculturalism. Mark Steyn, the Canadian writer accused of violating British Columbia's hate speech law by saying unnice things about Islam in Maclean's, tells Liptak:


What we're learning here is really the bedrock difference between the United States and the countries that are in a broad sense its legal cousins. Western governments are becoming increasingly comfortable with the regulation of opinion. The First Amendment really does distinguish the U.S., not just from Canada but from the rest of the Western world.

In hearings before the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, the lawyer representing Maclean's noted that the province's law gives writers accused of hurting people's feelings little recourse:


Innocent intent is not a defense. Nor is truth. Nor is fair comment on true facts. Publication in the public interest and for the public benefit is not a defense. Opinion expressed in good faith is not a defense. Responsible journalism is not a defense.

An attorney with the British Columbia Civil Liberties Union (which is siding with Maclean's) explains the Canadian attitude this way:


Canadians do not have a cast-iron stomach for offensive speech. We don't subscribe to a marketplace of ideas. Americans as a whole are more tough-minded and more prepared for verbal combat.

In the face of Canada's enforced niceness, it is refreshing to hear someone defend the principle that people should not have to justify their opinions to the government, period. Ezra Levant, another Canadian journalist who faced a human rights complaint (since retracted) for offending Muslims, put it this way during an encounter with an inquisitor from the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission:


I reserve maximum freedom to be maximally offensive, to hurt feelings as I like....The only thing I have to say to the government about why I published [the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons] is because it's my bloody right to do so....:beer:

[diuretic]

Tell me about the verbal combat! :laugh2:

[Kathianne]

Tell me about the verbal combat! :laugh2:

Not from me. I'm of school of, 'If you don't know what I'm talking about, I probably don't want to converse with you.' :laugh2: But I applaud my more confrontational fellow citizens.